Women, science deserve better

By CATHY YOUNG, GUEST COLUMNIST

Published 10:00 pm, Saturday, October 7, 2006

The debate over gender and science, which helped bring down Harvard President Lawrence Summers, has been revived by a report from the National Academies, "Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering."

The report endorses the view that men's predominance in scientific fields is due not to biological differences and personal priorities, as Summers suggested, but to gender bias and unconscious institutional sexism. Is this an effort to find out the truth or stamp out heresy?

The makeup of the panel that produced the report is revealing. Chaired by University of Miami PresidentDonna E. Shalala, known for her commitment to feminist causes, the panel included a number of strong proponents of the belief that women in science are held back primarily by sexism and that aggressive remedies to these biases are needed.

Absent were proponents of the viewpoint that biological sex differences influence cognitive skills in some areas.

A Reuters story said, "A committee of experts looked at all the possible excuses -- biological differences in ability, hormonal influences, childrearing demands, and even differences in ambition -- and found no good explanation for why women are being locked out."

But a look at the report shows a more complex picture.

The report points to the narrowing gap between boys' and girls' math test scores as evidence there are no innate differences to inhibit female success. But average test scores are not a good indicator of what it takes to be successful in the scientific field.

As the report briefly acknowledges, male scores have far greater variability, with more boys clustered at the bottom, among children with severe learning disabilities, and at the top, among the highly gifted.

The report attempts to neutralize this fact by pointing to a study finding that many women and men in the science, engineering and mathematics workforce have below "gifted" SAT math scores.

There's a caveat: The study looked but mainly at lower-level professionals with bachelor's degrees. If fewer average women than average men go into these fields, maybe because their interests lie elsewhere, is that really a problem?

General remedies include more family-friendly policies. what if single-minded devotion to work really is essential to outstanding science success?

None of this is to say that women are incapable of being outstanding scientists -- many women are, and their advances in these fields have been spectacular -- or that nothing can be done further to reduce the gender gap.

Cultural stereotypes undoubtedly play a role in the fact that even mathematically and scientifically gifted girls are more likely than boys to choose "human interest" professions.

We can also do more to reduce lingering prejudice against mothers who are not primary caregivers for their children, and against fathers who are.

But even with these changes, which need to take place in the culture as a whole, far more than in academic and scientific institutions, the ratio of women to men in science and engineering may always remain below 1-to-1.

Ultimately, the report is a missed opportunity. It could have addressed the personal and family choices women could make to maximize their career potential, or looked at the factors in the high achievement of Asian-American women in science.

Instead, it upholds an orthodoxy of female victimization. Women, and science, deserve better.